The water crisis gripping Flint, Michigan has exposed thousands of the city’s residents to dangerous lead levels. But Flint is hardly unique. Many other American cities have faced lead contamination in water supplies, and an expanding list of common substances, including some pesticides and flame retardants, may also be linked to significant developmental and neurological problems. Get the latest on this largely hidden crisis at a live forum from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, PRI’s The World and WGBH.

It's a story about mosquitoes, public health, water and women, which is why The World has sent its Across Womens' Lives team to Brazil. They’re there to report on how Zika fits into the story of Brazilian women’s struggles to improve their lives in a time of rapid and often disturbing environmental change.

Updated

10/05/2015 - 9:45am

Not long after the shooting in Charleston, a US House of Representatives committee rejected a measure that would have allowed the CDC to conduct research into gun violence, leaving intact a ban pushed by the NRA back in the 1990s. That leads to odd gun violence reports that are not about guns.

A deadly virus that first emerged in the Middle East has hit South Korea, where three people have died so far. Authorities have closed hundreds of schools and universities. But is that really necessary?

While the ranks of the uninsured in the US have dropped sharply under Obamacare, around four million low-income Americans are still left out of the program in states that did not expand Medicaid. And while those states wrestle with the federal government, ordinary citizens say they're suffering.

Updated

10/05/2015 - 9:45am

Not long after the shooting in Charleston, a US House of Representatives committee rejected a measure that would have allowed the CDC to conduct research into gun violence, leaving intact a ban pushed by the NRA back in the 1990s. That leads to odd gun violence reports that are not about guns.

Scientists say a girl born with HIV two-and-a-half years ago appears to have been cured. Though the apparent breakthrough is limited to one infant case, the news may give hope to the millions of people living with the HIV virus around the globe.

Among developed nations, the US has the highest rate of infant mortality despite pumping huge amounts of money into healthcare. That may be down to the lack of support for low-income families, where death rates among children are much higher.

Dr. Adam Levine just returned from Liberia, where he spent more than a month helping to treat Ebola patients. Now that he's back and waiting to see if he's officially clear of the disease, he's feeling the same isolation many West Africans feel — and he says the panic in the US isn't helping anti-Ebola efforts.

Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with physicist Lisbeth Gronlund of the Union of Concerned Scientists about her new study on the likely number of cancer deaths caused by Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident.

A post-Fukushima effort to crowdsource radiation data in Japan has since become the largest source of radiation data in the country. And it's now set to expand to other parts of the world. Catherine Winter reports from Tokyo.

One of Liberia's most popular hip-hop stations is taking its young audience and the Ebola crisis seriously. Hott FM is quickly becoming Monrovia's best source for 24/7 Ebola coverage — through both news updates and the hottest songs. Have a listen.

It may not be deadly, but the chikungunya virus has swept across the Caribbean and led Jamaica to declare a national state of emergency. The painful illness has infected thousands, and the island's government is hoping to clamp down on the disease with new information campaigns.